(12-06-2016 05:50 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: I feel bad for Brock Turner, as I feel bad for anyone who's basically bound to the laws of society. I feel bad that a person has their life ruined, that their reputation is in shambles, that hey can't compete in the Olympics when they were an Olympic hopeful. I feel bad for people who commit a crime, no matter how severe, and basically have the law inflicting severe punishments on them. As a matter of fact, I feel happy when people get away with serious crimes.

Do you feel like that for every single person in the world, or just people who have committed crimes?

And why do you feel happy when people get away with serious crimes exactly?

(12-06-2016 05:50 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: Ultimately I feel that reality is deterministic, I believe that people will commit crimes because the universe is a naturally chaotic place. To be mad at people who commit crimes is ultimately to be mad at the natural chaotic order of the universe. That's immature.

Yes, people will commit crimes, no matter what. However, there is a reason certain countries have lower crime rates than others. Justifying every single criminal is not the solution.

(12-06-2016 05:50 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: The justice system doesn't work, regardless. It's pure pragmatism. We put people in jail because there's an existential dilemma in our society; we have to live with one another and we have to make society work among the chaos. That is the point of the justice system. Not to mention that our punitive justice system is archaic and draconian. We're caging people like animals, and in a lot of cases we hate people, because they're the other. They're the "them" in our pack of society. That mentality saddens me to the deepest existential core of my being. I believe we're all people, it makes me sad when I see people's one life get squandered.

That's true. But that's just the case in your country. You probably wouldn't see such a case handled the same way in other countries. If you want to make a philosophical argument about crime, incarceration and life, you have to look beyond your borders.

(12-06-2016 05:50 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: There's many who don't get my point of view, and I have tried to explain it to people before, my dad got upset and didn't really want to listen to me. He said that he believes that if someone commits this sort of crime that their life deserves to be ruined. What right does one person have to assert total control over another human being? I think that it's sad, but this self righteousness arises out of an illusion of consciousness. We perceive ourselves to have free will, which is false. We're ultimately governed by the same forces that pull a rock down a hill.

This has nothing to do with free will. When you choose to live in a certain society, you automatically accept the rules and laws that go with it. You want criminals to get away with their crimes, but god forbid you get murdered or mugged or attacked.

When you choose to live in that society, you need to accept that in order for it to function properly and not fall into chaos there must be laws. Sometimes, you must assert total control over another human being for the protection of others. That's just how society works. If you don't like it and don't mind being murdered, go live in the jungle.

(12-06-2016 05:50 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: It's amazing to me, that through those forces I can do the things I do, but ultimately it's a program, it's a computer. It may sound like I'm trying to excuse someone for their "biological urge to rape", well, actually yes, I suppose you could look at it that way. Because if that's the sort of brain that a person has developed, and they don't work along the same lines of morality that someone else has, then you can't blame them, you shouldn't blame anyone really. Because that is simply the way things work.

You can't blame them, no, but you must lock them up. I mean, what else can you do? Of course the US justice system could learn a thing or two from the countries of Northern Europe and of course criminals there are treated in a much more humane and reasonable way. But they still lock them up. What is your alternative?

Well, to be honest, I feel worse for criminals because they're more demonized and punished than people who are victims of their crimes. It's sort of ironic to me, because in the grand scheme of things there is no laws that govern everyone's mind, criminals do the things they do and I am actually sort of happy when they get away with it sometimes. I like seeing people defy the standards set in place by the majority, I like seeing people overcome the giant machine that they're in the middle of, throw a wrench in it's gears and see it malfunction. I think to be conscious is ultimately to be trapped in an existential nightmare, like the guy in the book the stranger.

(12-06-2016 07:07 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: Well, to be honest, I feel worse for criminals because they're more demonized and punished than people who are victims of their crimes. It's sort of ironic to me, because in the grand scheme of things there is no laws that govern everyone's mind, criminals do the things they do and I am actually sort of happy when they get away with it sometimes. I like seeing people defy the standards set in place by the majority, I like seeing people overcome the giant machine that they're in the middle of, throw a wrench in it's gears and see it malfunction. I think to be conscious is ultimately to be trapped in an existential nightmare, like the guy in the book the stranger.

Have you ever been the victim of any crime?

"Behind every great pirate, there is a great butt."-Guybrush Threepwood-

(12-06-2016 07:07 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: Well, to be honest, I feel worse for criminals because they're more demonized and punished than people who are victims of their crimes. It's sort of ironic to me, because in the grand scheme of things there is no laws that govern everyone's mind, criminals do the things they do and I am actually sort of happy when they get away with it sometimes. I like seeing people defy the standards set in place by the majority, I like seeing people overcome the giant machine that they're in the middle of, throw a wrench in it's gears and see it malfunction. I think to be conscious is ultimately to be trapped in an existential nightmare, like the guy in the book the stranger.

Have you ever been the victim of any crime?

No. But a lot of people aren't victims of crimes and still don't agree with me.

(12-06-2016 07:07 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: Well, to be honest, I feel worse for criminals because they're more demonized and punished than people who are victims of their crimes. It's sort of ironic to me, because in the grand scheme of things there is no laws that govern everyone's mind, criminals do the things they do and I am actually sort of happy when they get away with it sometimes.

If you are serious, and it appears to me that you are, then you fit the profile of both an anarchist and a sociopath.

“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.”~Mark Twain
“Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”~ Ambrose Bierce

(12-06-2016 07:07 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: Well, to be honest, I feel worse for criminals because they're more demonized and punished than people who are victims of their crimes.

You think the victims should be demonized and punished as much as the criminals? I'm really hoping that just didn't come out the way you intended it.

Quote:It's sort of ironic to me, because in the grand scheme of things there is no laws that govern everyone's mind,

I disagree. We do not yet fully understand how the brain works but there's no evidence that it isn't following laws of physics and chemistry.

Quote:criminals do the things they do and I am actually sort of happy when they get away with it sometimes. I like seeing people defy the standards set in place by the majority, I like seeing people overcome the giant machine that they're in the middle of, throw a wrench in it's gears and see it malfunction. I think to be conscious is ultimately to be trapped in an existential nightmare, like the guy in the book the stranger.

There might be "crimes" for which I'd agree with that but rape is not one of them. Anybody who inflicts harm on another for their own personal pleasure needs to learn that such actions are not acceptable and will have consequences.

Atheism: it's not just for communists any more!
America July 4 1776 - November 8 2016 RIP

(12-06-2016 07:07 AM)Mittens Deluxe Wrote: Well, to be honest, I feel worse for criminals because they're more demonized and punished than people who are victims of their crimes. It's sort of ironic to me, because in the grand scheme of things there is no laws that govern everyone's mind, criminals do the things they do and I am actually sort of happy when they get away with it sometimes.

If you are serious, and it appears to me that you are, then you fit the profile of both an anarchist and a sociopath.